Words by Adam Z. Robinson // Illustrations by Max Dorey

Tag Archives: the hypnotist’s assistant

He stared down the barrel of the camera and confessed it all. He apologised, deeply, through muted sobs, for misleading us. For deceiving every one of us so cruelly. For making a mockery of his mystic art. All lies.

And she stared on from the wings. A scorching stare; a poisonous, enthralling smile.

He shook; whether with guilt or with shame or with fear, none could tell. The paper in his hand, from which he read, rustled noisily. His eyes told of the threat of vacillation, but he stayed the course of curious repentance. And every now and then she exhaled steadily from her position, just over his right shoulder.

“I have caused the deaths of one-thousand, two-hundred and six animals; large and small. Many perished in unimaginable agony.” His lip quivered but he muddled on “A total of seventeen human minds and souls have been lost to my art … my act. These wretches are now with the devil. I am a liar. I am a charlatan. I have masqueraded as a masterful peddler of the wonderful. But I am a vile deceiver. My magic is all illusion. My feats of the impossible, mere theatre.”

The nation drew breath together. Betrayal. The wonder trickled away like so much spilt milk. All fabrication and deception and puffs of smoke, now roiling away. And people were angry.

“There is a basement…” His words caught in his throat. He stopped, broke and recomposed himself. “And that’s where the children are. All of them. You see, it was not enchantment but a sham. A show. And they are there. They are all there.”

As the camera panned closer to his face – a mechanical gesture of incredulity – the noise of disruption from without the bolted studio doors began and rose rapidly. A rumble of disquiet, becoming, steadily, a chaos of voices; demanding the return of their trust and the salvation of their now-lacerated experience. And they were sharpening their knives.

And in the wings, her smile shrank and a final sigh signified her satisfaction. With him since her youth. Daughter of the first innocent woman who went mad by his trusted hand. This young woman held his secrets like a bouquet and watched them wither with time. And as the doors began to buckle; and just before the anger of the deceived was realised upon the man’s feeble, old body; this deathly posy of secrets was handed back to the world. By her.

Wearing the clothes in which he’d dressed and kept her. Revealing, at last, her lucidity. The magician’s assistant.